In today's airplane market, space is at a premium and waste stowage has been identified as a valued item for passengers, especially in lavatories where space is of even greater focus. Lavatory trash is predominantly paper towels and tissues and can be easily compressed, but when uncompressed, such trash consumes significant volume and fills waste compartments quickly.
Currently, some airplane attendants use improvised tools to compress waste compartments in-flight. Unfortunately, such action can only be performed when the lavatory is unoccupied, and such action interrupts lavatory usage. In addition, this approach does not offer a consistent and efficient way to increase waste volume in the waste compartments, and further, can be an unhygienic solution.
Other existing waste management solutions for aircraft include galley trash compactors. Such trash compactors include hydraulic technology to compact trash and reduce trash volume in the galley area. These types of motorized trash compactors associated with galleys offer very high crushing forces and with that extreme compactions comes additional weight and complexity. However, aircraft lavatories do not include powered trash compactors, and the lavatory trash bins frequently fill to the top requiring flight attendants to empty the trash in route.
What is needed is a light duty tamper unit that provides ability to compact trash in aircraft lavatories, thereby improving lavatory hygiene, without requiring new electrical connections, without creating new maintenance complications, and while offering a light weight solution.